


Adrift and Afloat

by Sheeana



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, Resolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-28
Updated: 2013-06-28
Packaged: 2017-12-16 10:26:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/861004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheeana/pseuds/Sheeana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Serenity, Inara decides to accompany Mal and the others on their first real job in a long time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adrift and Afloat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lbilover](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lbilover/gifts).



"But Cap'n," Kaylee was saying, grabbing for Mal's arm just before his foot touched the dusty ground outside the ship. 

"What did I say, Kaylee?" Mal said. He tried to roll his shoulder to get her to let go, but that only caused her to tighten her grip. Inara hid her smile behind the elegant, spread-out fan she was carrying in her hand.

"You said no ifs, ands, or buts. But-"

"And what did you just do?"

"But, Cap'n," Kaylee protested one more time, cringing and pulling back her hands when he glared at her, holding them up to show she was giving up.

"This is a good job, Kaylee, and I won't be hearing otherwise. We need the pay."

"I know that, Cap'n, but-"

"No buts!"

"I believe Kaylee merely meant to tell you that your tie needs to be adjusted, Mal," Inara said, smoothly cutting in and stepping in between Mal and Kaylee. She tugged at Mal's clothing until it satisfied her, pinching and smoothing out the wrinkles, and then she stepped back, admiring for a moment. Mal shifted, visibly uncomfortable. "There. You look _dashing_ , Captain Reynolds."

"No one's here to look dashing. We're here to crash the party, find our buyer, make the deal, and get out fast before Jayne blows the vault. No fancy tricks, and no damn heroics. Inara, you're with me. Kaylee, Zoe, stay with River and the ship. Jayne, you know what to do."

"That I do," Jayne replied, with a mocking two-fingered salute. Hanging upside down from the walkway above them, River cocked her head at him and made a face with a crinkled forehead and pursed lips, and this time Inara couldn't hide her smile and didn't try. It had been so long since they had reason to smile freely.

-

Their entrance onto the ballroom floor of the main complex in the planetary capital went largely unnoticed, despite their falsified invitations. Mal had taken every precaution to get them to look the part for this endeavor. Inara briefly considered a biting joke about rarities and small wonders, but this was the first time Mal had conceded to taking a real job since Miranda. She was concerned enough that she was actively participating, enough that teasing him seemed childish and petty. Enough that she had allowed him to use her connections and had even chosen one of her finest gowns for the occasion, even after he had informed her that there might be 'some manner of rule-bending involved.'

She was acutely aware of his hand on the small of her back as they moved around the dance floor, but that was no different from her usual awareness of people around her or near her. Awareness of touch and body warmth was something that had been deeply engrained into her a very long time ago, until it had become as natural as breathing.

"He looks like the shady type," Mal said quietly, just above her ear, looking somewhere over her shoulder.

"You would know," she replied, as she performed a graceful spin and then a bow at a lull in the music. The man Mal had indicated with a nod was hanging back, thankfully not watching them but clearly waiting for something or someone. It was entirely possible that they weren't the only ones attending this party without an invitation.

"I would, would I?" She could almost feel him raising his eyebrows.

"I'm merely saying that your skill in the field of shadiness is a well-known fact in certain circles."

"Certain circles." Mal's eyes were still on the man in the corner.

"As I said. Certain circles."

"Ain't nothing wrong with that in my book. Man's gotta make a living somehow," Mal replied. Inara allowed herself another brief smile as she lowered her head to his shoulder.

They danced in silence for awhile, Mal too vigilant to pay enough attention to the placement of their feet. He was lucky he had a good partner, she thought, as she guided him with her hand at his waist. The music ended and he seemed to come back to her, his eyes re-focusing on hers. She offered him a smile and a bow, and he did the same, a second off-rhythm. Thankfully, there was still no one was watching them closely enough for their dancing skills to have any bearing on the outcome of their job.

"Think I saw our friend," Mal whispered near her ear. With practiced grace, she turned her head just enough to spy him from the corner of her eye – a tall man, dressed in blue velvet, with a seemingly untouched glass of wine in his left hand. He didn't immediately seem to suit the type of person she had imagined purchasing their services to break into a vault, but people often hid their true nature.

"I think I'd like something to drink, dear," she said, laughing as if Mal had told her a particularly clever joke. "Would you be so kind?"

"Why, you know me. Anything for you, dear," he said, with an exaggerated wink. She almost regretted her earlier decision not to be harsh with him. Almost. Seeing him acting so alive again was worth bearing a small amount of teasing.

A few words to the man in the blue velvet suit was all it seemed to take, and then Mal was walking back at a quickened pace, taking her arm and heading in the direction of the door as he held his hand to the device at his ear keeping him connected to the rest of the crew. The face he made told Inara everything she needed to know about what Jayne was saying.

"Yes, Jayne. You can set off the explosives now." Whatever Jayne's response was, Inara couldn't hear, but she suspected it was cut off by the resounding explosion that followed. Her expression of shock as the ground shook and glasses shattered on the floor was only half-feigned. Mal's expression of shock told her that the explosion had been slightly more _resounding_ than he had anticipated.

The chaos, at least, made their escape easy, practically by-the-numbers, she imagined, if there were any guidelines or rules for this sort of thing. She generally preferred to stay at least somewhat ignorant of what the crew of the Serenity did for a living, but she was aware that they usually ran into trouble. It wouldn't be possible to live on the ship and not notice how often things didn't go according to plan.

Today the plan seemed to be unfolding the way Mal had envisioned, except, perhaps, for Jayne's enthusiasm for explosives. They blended into the crowd and fled, ducking away into a small service corridor to make their way to the roof. She caught a brief glimpse of Mal's shady man, running off in another direction, and wondered if today it was someone else whose job wasn't going according to plan. She also spotted the buyer, divested of his outer layer of blue velvet, sneaking off down another corridor in the direction of the vault, just before Mal pulled her up a staircase and out of sight from the rest of the crowd.

They emerged blinking and shielding their eyes into the sunlight, on a broad patio overlooking the lush gardens of the compound and its grounds, the stunted forest and then the desert visible in the distance past the outskirts of the town. Much closer, and much less pleasing to the eye, a large part of the roof had caved in on the far side of the patio as a result of the explosion. The wooden beams beneath were smoldering, fire spreading fast beneath their feet.

"Dammit, Jayne," Mal said, as he surveyed the damage. "I said five charges, not fifty. That man don't have a clue how to listen to orders."

"This isn't the first time you've had a hitch in your plans," Inara reminded him. Mal glanced up and down and seemed to deem their situation perilous, because he swiftly brought his hand to his ear again. This time, Inara did the same, not quite trusting her life entirely to Mal's judgement.

"Now would be good, River," Mal said. The fire came closer, and they backed away – only for the floor to give way beneath Mal's feet. Only Inara's quick reflexes saved them from tumbling over the edge, her arm around Mal's waist as she clung to a metal bar jutting out from the tiles. He held tight to her dress, gripping until the exorbitantly expensive fabric started to strain. Under other circumstances, she might have told him off. Right now, she was more worried about the flames she could see flickering around the wooden beams supporting the remaining few patio tiles to which the bar she was holding was anchored.

"River!" she shouted, as she briefly allowed herself to give in to the sense of urgency and fear.

"Vector adjustment in four dimensions. Calculating optimal speed for-"

"Anytime now!" Mal yelled, interrupting River's quiet monologue.

Inara gasped as the fire neared her hand, burning hot long before it came anywhere near close enough to lick at her skin. She nearly let go, but at the last second remembered that she was the only thing keeping them from falling off the slanted edge of the roof and down onto the grass that didn't look nearly as soft from up here as it had when she was crossing the lawn to enter the party. Another few seconds and her fingers started to slip, but she clung stubbornly to the bar even as searing pain shot through her hand and down her arm.

The roaring engine of the Serenity behind them was one of the most welcome sounds she had heard in her entire life. The cargo bay doors slid open just as her fingers lost their grip on the hot metal, but Mal controlled their descent along the side of the roof until they landed, safe and relatively unharmed, on the floor of the cargo bay, surrounded by broken roof tiles shaken ajar by the explosion that had accompanied them on their fall. Her skirt was torn and a few of her fingers were starting to blister from the burns.

Mal glanced at her. She glanced back at him. They broke into shared, relieved laughter.

-

It was dark and quiet on the ship when Mal came to Inara's shuttle that night. When she heard a noise in the entry corridor she rose smoothly from where she knelt on the rug near the low table, where a row of candles were slowly burning down. As she pulled back the curtains, she wasn't sure who she expected until she saw his face, and then she knew she couldn't have expected anyone else. She stepped aside and wordlessly allowed him entrance; he kept his eyes on the floor until he stood in the center of the room.

"Are you all right?" she asked, coming to stand before him, looking up to his eyes and seeing only the candlelight from her last few dying candles reflected in them. He never entered her shuttle anymore, with or without her permission, but something had changed today - between them and between the entire crew. There had been laughter and lightness around the table at dinner, and Mal hadn't escaped unaffected by the new mood. She sensed it, read it in the way he stood, unassuming, with none of the arrogance that had always made up a large part of who he was.

He took her hands and kissed them over the bandages, and she thought he had learned humility. It had taken him a very long time and had earned him a great deal of suffering, but he had learned it at last. Whether it was a victory or a defeat, she could never be certain.

"Why did you stay?" he asked. It was a plain and simple question if she'd ever heard one. It deserved a plain and simple answer. An honest answer.

"Because you needed me," she said, and that seemed to be the right thing to say. His mouth found hers, her back found her bed, and then there was nothing to say for a long while.

After, they lay together in the low light. Mal breathed deep and slow, lost in some other place. Inara thought she had some inkling of where that place was.

"They're not coming back, Mal," she said softly. "They're gone."

"Yeah, I know." He exhaled heavily and closed his eyes. She could barely make out his eyelids in the near-darkness. "... I know. You come all the way down here to remind me?"

"You came here," Inara said, gently running her bandaged fingers down his bare shoulder and arm.

"Ain't no power in the 'verse can stop us. Only slow us down a bit," he murmured, and Inara believed. She always had, or she would never have signed onto the Serenity's crew. They had all believed, from the very beginning.

"I reckon, Mal," she said quietly into the silence that followed, briefly taking on something of his normal demeanor, "You may be right."

They lay wordlessly after that, listening to the sounds of the ship and their own breath. The last candle flickered and eventually died, and then they were adrift in the dark.


End file.
